This is the perfect time to get your students excited about art! Starting Thursday in New York City, art will be the talk of the town, as New Yorkers kick off Art Week (March 3-6, 2016). This event is actually a medley of premiere international art fairs, including The Armory Show, the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Art Show, and the Independent New York art fair – all running concurrently.
Art Activities for Your Class
Ready to bring the world of art to your students? These “artsy” activities don’t need to be confined to art classes. As we learned in 7 Ways Schools Can Get Creative with STEAM, and Picking Up STEAM, schools are now merging science and math lessons with visual arts. Whether you’re orchestrating a field trip to one of the country’s best museums, or applying math principals to art projects, Art Week has something for everyone! We’re also offering a promotion, and you can win $25 in art supplies, simply by posting photos of your students’ artwork. See details below.
Art for Math Class
This may sound like a crazy concept, but many works of contemporary art actually apply mathematical concepts and components. Engage your math students with an artsy activity, to help them see math in a new light.
The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. offers free hands-on lesson plans called New Angles on Art to help teachers combine the artistic and mathematical disciplines.
- At this link you’ll find two activities for grades 5-8 and one for grades 9-12.
- All activity plans meet C3 standards, and include teaching resources such as background information, class discussion questions, step-by-step instructions and material lists.
Art for History Class
Linking art to history is easy. Students of any grade level can create works of art – drawings, paintings, sculptures – that reflect the history lessons you’re teaching. Alternately, of course, they can study the history of art itself, from many different parts of the world.
- Thurgood Marshall Middle School in California provides a wide variety of interesting Art/History lesson plans for download, including activities in Egyptian art, African art, Impressionism, Cartooning and even Photography. These lessons are designed for middle schoolers.
- Incredible Art offers an Art History Timeline lesson plan for high school students, using Powerpoint.
- The National Gallery of Art has a fascinating activity called 19th Century America in Art & Literature. In this assortment of lessons, primarily for grades 5-8, works of art from the nineteenth century are paired with written documents with which students reconstruct the influence of technology, geography, economics and politics on daily life. These lessons are appropriate for both History and English classes.
Art for English Class
Students from any grade level will enjoy incorporating art activities into their English lessons.
- Teacher Vision brings us 30 different lesson plans to choose from, with interesting topics such as: Native American Picture Writing, Change the Dialog in a Comic Strip, and Similes from Autumn (which can easily be adapted for Spring!).
- Another easy way to combine art and English is to have your students select a piece of art that interests them (researching famous art works online), study the composition and intent of the piece, and then write an essay about it.
Art for Art Class!
Of course your options for art projects in art class are limitless. For ideas, check out resources such as:
Field Trips for Any Class
One of the best ways to build your students’ appreciation for art is to let them see some of the world’s finest works with their own eyes. The following links will help you find a great museum near you:
Celebrating Art in New York
- The Armory Show is the largest and most well-known of the acclaimed New York art fairs, showcasing over 200 galleries from around the world. A citywide initiative, Armory Arts Week highlights the diverse cultural offerings of New York's arts scene, from exclusive museum tours to discussion panels, gallery openings and performances. Now in its 22nd year, The Armory Show remains a highly-anticipated event on the global arts calendar, in one of America’s most exciting cities.
- The annual ADAA Art Show offers “intimately scaled and thoughtfully curated presentations” by the nation’s leading fine art dealers. At this show audiences find a rich selection of works from the late 19th century through today, including unique selections such as 20th-century classic Tribal art from the Donald Morris Gallery, or works by “optic and kinetic artists” from the Maxwell Davidson Gallery. The Independent New York art fair is moving to Tribeca for 2016. The architectural scheme for the event is custom-designed by Jonathan Caplan, a world-famous architect and teacher who studied at both Columbia University and Cambridge.
In attendance, New York’s Art Week is second only to Art Miami in the U.S. (over 85,000) and to ARCO Madrid (over 90,000) globally. ARCO Madrid recently concluded, and Art Miami will be held from December 1-4, 2016.
What artistic talent are you discovering in your classroom? Share photos of your students’ best work and we’ll feature it in a blog later this Spring! Also, every time you post a photo, you will automatically be entered to win $25 in art supplies, via donations made through Adopt-A-Classroom.org. Two winners will be selected at random, and the winners’ names will be announced on April 11, 2016.
background-image: a building with the American flag in front of it